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I've never liked the unfairness of rounding fractional cruising speeds. I created the LH-based strategic movement system to deal with them on the strategic level, but it very recently occurred to me that the problem still existed on the system scale. (It probably exists on the Interception Scale as well...)

Here's a method for eliminating this unfairness without adding too much complexity, I hope.

Consider this... if one didn't drop those fractions, they'd add up over the course of time. For example, a spd 5 BB with a cruising speed of 2.5 moves 2.5 sys hexes on day 1, and another 2.5 sys hexes on day 2. In theory, the BB should have moved 5 sys hexes over those 2 days. So, here's how this method works...

Fractional Cruising Speed Table for System Scale Movement

Ships with cruising speed fractions of ...

Gain +1 MP on days

1/2

2, 4, 6, 8, 10, ... 26, 28, 30

1/3

3, 6, 9, ... 24, 27, 30

2/3

2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9 ... 26, 27, 29, 30

Now, this table basically assumes that the ships in question are moving the entire month. In a more accurate model, the above BB with a cruising speed of 2.5 should gain that +1 MP every other day that it was moving. For example, if the BB was in orbit of a planet on day 1 and didn't start moving until day 2, it really shouldn't get the extra MP until day 3. But this could get rather complicated if one had to track what days the various ships were or were not moving to accurately know when they really should get the extra MP. I think that it's simpler to just use the above table, since even if there is some error, it's far less error than is created by the rounding of cruising speeds.

As for translating this to the Interception Scale, the method would probably similar, but the details would change.

Interesting. Strategically you would have a good reason to maintain battleships in your, due to their faster movement. Sort of a quick reation group. (If I am reading it right)The table is simple enough. Simple = Good

tmul4050 wrote:Interesting. Strategically you would have a good reason to maintain battleships in your, due to their faster movement. Sort of a quick reaction group. (If I am reading it right)The table is simple enough. Simple = Good

Tmul, the above table is for system level movement rather than true strategic level movement. The Strategic version is the LH-based strategic movement system, which also treats fractional cruising speeds as fairly as possible.

I also intend on doing the same for the Interception Scale, though that can't really be done until I actually get that scale locked it. But the basics would be that it'd most likely function like the system scale table, just with different details. Right now, it looks like there are 6 pulses in a System turn, which would mean that the fractional speeds would spread themselves across those 6 pulses, which is good for fractions of 1/2, 1/3, and 2/3.

Fractional Cruising Speed Table for Interception Scale Movement

Ships with cruising speed fractions of ...

Gain +1 MP on System Pulse

1/2

2, 4, 6

1/3

3, 6

2/3

2, 3, 5, 6

As for the other comments, it'd be good for any I-drive ship with an odd numbered speed, such as speed 7 DD's. But yes, it would be good for I-drive BB's and SD's since it would mean that they wouldn't slow down a fleet quite so much on the system or interception scales. And they'd be able to outrun I-drive MT's.

I like this. It's simple, clean and does stay true to canon. The only caveat would be that any drive system should have a strategic speed of x/6 of its full speed or the calculations for gaining the extra mp get messy.

Charles Rosenberg.

Alexei Timoshenko is the name of my protagonist in the fanfics, although I wish it could have been me.

AlexeiTimoshenko wrote:I like this. It's simple, clean and does stay true to canon. The only caveat would be that any drive system should have a strategic speed of x/6 of its full speed or the calculations for gaining the extra mp get messy.

A 3/4 cruising speed wouldn't be pretty, but it wouldn't be grossly offensive. What it comes down to is this... which would cause a greater error? Simply rounding the cruising speed from the start, or using a less than perfectly clean fraction within this system? I think that the answer is clearly that even a less than perfect fraction would still produce a more accurate result than rounding a fractional cruising speed from the start. Let's look at a 3/4 cruising speed, since it's probably the most likely fractional value that might be used that wasn't 1/2, 1/3, or 2/3.

Let's say that a speed 1 ship had a cruising speed of 3/4. If we rounded, it'd be rounded to 1, meaning that the ship would get to move 1 sH every day of the 30 day month, or a total of 30 sH. Now, if we try to fit it into the system scale model above, it'd move 3 out of every 4 days, or 22.5 sH in a 30 day month, which we'd round to 22 sH. I'd say that a rounding error of 1/2 of a sH on the low side is considerably better than a rounding error of 7.5 sH on the high side. Of course, on the interception scale, the size of the difference would be smaller, as the ship would move 4.5 rounded to 4 Int Hexes per 4 hour system pulse vs 6 Int Hexes per system pulse... which is still in favor of the new model.

Regardless, I do agree with you, Alexei, that cruising speed fractions that are fractions of x/6 are cleaner and more preferable. But a fraction of 1/4 or 3/4 wouldn't be particularly bad, since the rounding error within the new system would be less than the rounding error in the old system.

AlexeiTimoshenko wrote:Not sure if it's workable, but could you do a 12 impulse chart at the interception level? That would allow almost any conceivable fractional speed.

The reason that it's 6 pulses at the interception level table is that there are 6 pulses (4 hours in length) each system turn (i.e. day). To make the interception table have 12 pulse would require changing the system scale to having 12 two-hour pulses, which I'm wary of doing, given that cruising speeds for starships tend to be roughly between 2-4 MP. Using a 12 pulse table would be doable, but there'd be a lot of gaps on the table.

Honestly, I'm not that worried about other fractions because the rounding errors for 1/4 and 3/4 cruising speeds on the above tables is relatively minor compared to simply rounding the fractions away from the start.